


Dark Night of Desires

by Lalaith_Raina (Mirtathor)



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works
Genre: International Day of Slash, M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-01
Updated: 2012-07-01
Packaged: 2017-11-11 18:41:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/481642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mirtathor/pseuds/Lalaith_Raina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Fëanor's infamous confrontation with his brother, the sons of both houses are left to sort out where they will go from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dark Night of Desires

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zhie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zhie/gifts).



"My word is final, Findekáno!" Nolofinwë shouted, slamming the bedroom door behind him as he left his son fuming behind him. For all of the talk of how calm and collected he had remained as his brother threatened him at grandfather's estate, he was certainly not afraid to let his emotions show to his sons. 

The row when he'd arrived home had been frightening to witness. It had seemed so unheard of that their uncle would pull a blade on their father that, when the story had been told, they had been reluctant to believe it. Turukáno had followed his example, though for different reasons, arguing that surely there was something else at work here and they should pay their uncle and cousins a visit to speak further. Írissë was the most rebellious, arguing that the feud of one generation shouldn't punish the generations after, and threatening to run off to live with her uncle. Arakáno alone supported his father, attempting to rally his elder siblings to his cause with talk of sticking together and how wild their uncle had become.

In the end, Findekáno had marched up to his room to grab his cloak, intending to leave to settle this feud and misunderstanding personally. His father had followed and started playing the usual cards of 'his house, his rule' and respecting one's parents, and it had ended in this. 

He glanced out the window at the paling sky, a haze of silver and gold light dancing together across the horizon. Staying here would give his father time to cool his head and his family a chance to work together to decide what was the best course of action. But leaving would mean getting actual answers.

This was not the first time he had needed to sneak out, so he knew how to fool his father. Leaving immediately would be too risky, so instead he played his role for any listening ears. He paced around his room, twirling a braid around his finger anxiously as he counted the number of laps he had taken. Too few would be telling, but too many would be obvious. Eleven laps and he flung himself onto his bed and pulled his pillow to him as an afterthought, holding it close and smiling faintly. Not long and he would be holding someone much larger and warmer than a pillow. He rolled onto his side, thought of spooning around Maitimo, then flipped onto his other side and thought of being spooned instead. The bed creaked obligingly, shifting and headboard bucking as he flopped around in mock agitation. He concluded his show by rolling onto his stomach and staying still as he watched the gold fade away and dim silver light take its turn.

Findekáno listened closely for sounds of his family; mother and father seemed to be in the sitting room still, his brothers sounded to be with his sister in the room beside his own, and the coast was clear. Carefully he stood, padding soundlessly over the floor to grab his pale grey cloak. Knowing that the gold in his hair would give him away but not wanting to take out his braids, he pulled the hood down low over his eyes. He ducked to grab a rope from beneath his bed, taking it with him to his window. It trailed behind him, one end already tied beneath the headboard to hold it in place as he flung the other end outside. 

Everything was quiet when he landed on the grass, but he didn't risk moving past any windows of the house, instead heading towards the cover of trees. He was free then, knowing that nobody would be following or hiding here, and part of the thrill of sneaking off to see his cousin was the journey there in silence. The woods felt eerily still, almost as if the very trees were at rest, or perhaps even they had heard about his father's brotherly troubles and hoped to hear more gossip. 

Smoke curled in the distance and orange blotted out windows of the forge, slowing his steps. The Fëanorians were still hard at work, then, and he furrowed his brow as he slipped from trunk to trunk, trying to decide his course. Tyelkormo was within, his pale hair taking the hue of the flames around him, flaring out as he turned suddenly to look out the window into the surrounding woods. Findekáno froze, staring back and wondering if he'd been seen, if perhaps his cousin would give him some sign, but after a long and slow scan of his surroundings the elf turned his back to the outside and hunched over once more. Was Maitimo in there as well, then? His flight would have been for nothing, and yet, instead of returning home he returned to the cover of the denser woods, making his way behind the estate to the rocky hills surrounding.

The night was cooler now, even near the smoke of the forge, and a soft mist swirled around the trailing edge of his cloak as he crept towards a clearing nearby. Though the towering trees filled these woods, there was one tree that stood out, lilies around its base like plush carpeting. It was an old tree that, by some twist of nature, almost appeared to be composed of multiple, thinner tree trunks. His brother had used this tree once, summers past, he recalled; Turukáno did so enjoy hiding things away, and he'd fallen in love with the way that he could slip between two gnarled columns into a hollowed area that was invisible if you weren't looking for it.

The mist was thick within, a rolling cloud that made everything seem dreamlike, and so it wasn't that bizarre for him to see a tall figure in gleaming, sharp-lined clothes and assume he was seeing a vision. Perhaps he was seeing a Maia.

But he stepped closer and there was a sick feeling in his stomach that rolled and made him clench his jaw. The arch to his back, the set of the shoulders, the curve of his neck all were familiar. The way one hand rested just so on his hip, the other twisted before him, and though his mouth opened nothing came out. He hoped it was a dream.

"You don't think your brother would mind, do you?" the figure asked, turning slightly to glance over his shoulder only after he'd spoken, as though he didn't really need to look to know who it was that stood behind him. Perhaps he didn't. Perhaps he just didn't care.

Findekáno shook his head, declining comment to instead circle his cousin with a furrowed brow. Instead of the custom tunics of silk or velvet, the usual rich textiles draped over his shapely form, he was adjusting a bracer of brilliant gleam with jewels and threads of gold winding around it in a decorative pattern like vines. His fiery hair was hidden beneath a helm that fit close to his head, and as he circled he saw it also covered much of his face in angular strokes. At his hip was a sheath for a sword, already filled.

"I needed to get away from all the fuss and uproar. Father's in a right fit, and of course Celegorm and Curufin are only rallying around him and encouraging it. I recalled this cave, and figured it was rather suited to the occasion, don't you think?" he continued, either oblivious to the fearful stare or unbothered by it. He reached up to bat the hood away from his cousin's face, gazing upon him fully and furrowing his brow in return. "You don't think, then? I assumed you would come searching, and your brother likes to hide his valuables in these caves. You are my valuable," he tried, smiling, but it looked twisted beneath the iron.

"It's true then." It was not a question. It did not need to be.

"That depends on what 'it' we are-"

"That your father came after mine! That things are worse than ever. That your family readies itself for a war."

"We ready ourselves to defend what we must, if we must, Fin. Nobody said we were marching into an open battlefield."

"But you seek to create one. Against your own cousins? Against his own brother?" He shook his head sharply, in a similar fashion as though a bug had landed on his nose and needed scared away. "So you would fight us? You- you would fight me?" he breathed, feeling everything twist. His father's and youngest brother's words pounded through his veins like burning insults and he realized that he saw only what he wanted. He had always known, always admired that fire that now threatened them both.

"Never," Maitimo hissed, moving for the first time, stepping closer to fix that piercing, fiery, burning gaze on him and him alone. The mist seemed to swirl away from them, to circle them like an eager audience. "I would never fight you. I couldn't."

Words meant little now, and words never meant so much. He reached up to grab that hideous helm that made the angles of his face only sharper, only more severe. "I can't stand this. I don't want to see you like this, can't see you like this," he rambled, fingers shaking on the buckles that strapped his cousin, his beloved, his dearest friend into war. Maitimo's thick fingers lifted to aid him, his movements slower as he continued to study him curiously. One buckle fell away, another strap at his chin, and he lifted the steel from his head. Fiery hair fell around his face and shoulders and he blinked finally, letting the armor fall limp at his side. It wasn't enough and Findekáno swatted it harshly so it fell with a satisfying thud at their feet. 

"Promise me." It had been meant as an innocent gesture, a hopeful plea, but as soon as it left his mouth he tasted it go sour.

Maitimo straightened and his expression hardened into something wild. He grasped his cousin's arms near his shoulders and held him there, gave him a light squeeze. "I swear it, Findekáno. I will sooner betray my father than betray you," he hisses, and the way he grasps his arm tightly is only an underline to his words. But instead of being comforting, it only makes Findekáno's fingers turn to ice and his heart thud awkwardly, uncomfortably. 

It felt like a sign. The shadows swirling around them, the way the light of Telperion was still glinting in their hair despite their shelter, the way everything felt suffocating and alone there. Like they were trapped somewhere between life and dream, waking and death, and he didn't know what to think or say. Maitimo was gazing at him with the same passion he always had but with iron and silver glinting at his throat, with a gauntlet on his own bicep clenching and pinching, with a sword clanking at his hip, and the passion felt stronger, sharper. A flame that would devour him if he let it. And for the first time in his life, he wasn't sure he wanted to be devoured by him.

"Don't say such things," he finally choked, staring up with wide and dark eyes. "What if it comes to that? I would not have your family upset on my account."

"And I would not see you harmed on mine," Maitimo bit back, shaking his head sharply, agitated. Like a stallion itching for a fight or a race, rearing to go. 

There was nothing more to say. Nothing that could be said, and even were there, he had no desire to say them. Promises and words weren't enough, he knew, and they were on the edge of a jeweled blade. He could continue to ask about the design and the balance of it, or he could knock it aside and forget it for what time they have now. Maitimo's lips were parted, twitching to show the white gleam of teeth, and he knew that he was aching to say something more but unable to find the words for it. So he spared him the effort.

Maitimo was warm and wet beneath his lips, and as soon as they're together he was nipped sharply, lower lip caught between those gleaming teeth to bite just hard enough to burn. Findekáno clung to the armor, finding easy places to grasp the cool steel and hooking his fingers into grooves to tug, feeling the strong body jerk and dance at his touch, moving with his armor. He took control of the kiss, not about to let his beloved take control again, not now when he's so callously arrogant -- he didn't want to be mastered tonight or feel bruises pleasantly stinging in the morning. Tonight he wanted to make Maitimo feel the things he is feeling, the burn in his lungs and the sting to his eyes, the fire in his heart. He needed him to feel these things. They had to feel them together.

The moss padded their steps, and as Findekáno walked Maitimo backwards he could feel the indentations of heavy boots beneath the soft soles of his own slippers. The larger elf stumbled back, with his lover in his arms, one hand tangled in flaming hair and the other pulling at the back of his chest plate's collar. It was more hurried than usual, no pauses for gentle whispers or slow stripping of one another's garments. He snapped his head to the side, tearing his lip from where it's being suckled and teased to take everything himself.

Maitimo was stunned as his back hit the bark of a tree and his lips were claimed again, the feel of a strong tongue curling along the inside of his teeth in a tantalizing trail making the small hairs at the base of his neck stand on edge. He was defenseless as his tongue was lured forwards and sucked in a promise of later events, as deft fingers unlocked his armor with clarity they lacked only minutes ago leaving it to drop with heavy thuds to the moss at their feet. His knees buckled and he gave in, leaned back and spread his legs to let his slighter partner in. The chest plate came loose with a click and he surged forward as he tilted his head back, feeling it as it lifted over his head and tangled briefly in his hair before crunching beside them.

Findekáno pressed against him and he could feel his heat fully, properly for the first time that night. Maitimo hesitated as he looked into the icy eyes studying him, lifted his hands to thread into the mass of dark, wild hair, tamed only mildly by the golden-strewn braids that he so adored. Something passed between them in that moment as they paused in their passion to see one another, to feel their hearts pounding in time together. Before he could find the words to ask what it was his cousin was thinking, before he could even truly know what he was thinking, it passed and Findekáno was undoing him with another swirl of tongue that made his eyes roll back.

His mind was a jumble of speed and caution, of wanting to just feel him in his hand and taste him on his tongue mixed with wanting to press him into the ground and feel him arch and surge against him and watch his eyes as they find pleasure together for hours. The distant smell of coal floats past and his mind is made; if this is the turning point, it would be a memory to keep him warm for years to come, not a messy memory of a juvenile tryst.

"Mine," he whispered as he hooked a leg behind already bent knees, twisting and jerking his shoulder into it. They fell with a grunt and Maitimo laughed lightly, a wince in his eyes from the air that escaped him as he found himself between dirt and elf. "Mine, always."

In the past, he would have fought for dominance. Instead, the redhead gazed at the dark figure above him and lifted a hand to run the back of his fingers against a pale cheek. "Mine," he repeated as he lifted a leg to hook over the slender hips above him, making room for him to settle.

It was slow, a memorization of every curve and birthmark. Findekáno undressed him one article at a time, dropped kisses to the calloused pad of every finger and brushed his cheek against every expanse of skin. He inhaled his scent, the coal smoke in his hair and the sweat on his skin, and he tasted every irregular mark. Maitimo took his turn as well, rolling them after he was bared to tend to his cousin instead, clothes tossed into a careless pile to be forgotten. He bit and sucked and left his own marks, he raked his blunt nails down and up and over to watch the way skin turned white and then red in his wake. 

He slipped down between slender legs of tight muscle and dragged his tongue over heated flesh and nipped at sensitive skin below. Findekáno's hand tightened in his hair and yanked, and he grunted as he allowed himself to be dragged away and pushed onto his back once more. Dried leaves stuck to his damp skin and as he stroked over his lover's back he brushed aside twigs and attempted to swipe dirt.

It was not their usual position, not one that either favored, but Maitimo arched up through the cool air to press into a hot body. His long legs bent and curled up, hooking over thigh and hip to pull closer and hold tight just as his arms held his chest. Every movement, every shift pressed them wholly together, chests slid and surged, stomachs pressed rhythmically with their breaths and thrusts, arousals ground against one another in a catch of heated flesh. But even as hands grasped and lips brushed slickly, there was no rush, only the moment of looking into each other's eyes and wondering if they'd ever have that view again. It was love, but it was desperation; fear and hope wrestling while their blood roared in their ears.

They could happily have remained forever like that, alone in the world. There was only the feel of their breaths as they panted and sighed against each other's lips, or the way Findekáno's braids swung around them like some elaborate curtain with gold-threaded tassels. There was whispered laughter as they bumped noses or tried to subtly spit hair out of their mouths. And when they did find release, it was with soft cries and eyes staring wide, refusing to close to the sight.

Findekáno settled upon his cousin, his lover, his best friend's chest, his head turned so he could listen to the hammer of his heart and the gentle soaring sound of his breaths. The armor hovered nearby in mist that shimmered to his tired eyes and was unimportant. A strong hand stroked his hair away from his back and neck, the other hand nearly burning his hip where it settled. 

Tomorrow would bring what it may, but for tonight, he would lose himself to everything Maitimo, everything Russandol, and leave the grief for later.

**Author's Note:**

> This story was done for the IDoS as a gift to zhie, with inspiration in the form of song from esteliel. "Dark Night of Desires" by Loreena McKinnett and "Paths of Desire" by October Project.
> 
> All characters are property of Tolkien and his estate, as are the events leading up to and following this story.


End file.
